Twisted Vows

Exposure Therapy

(Kian’s POV)

The applause still echoed in his ears hours after the ballroom had emptied.

But it didn’t soothe.

Didn’t satisfy.

It scratched.

Like glass on bone.

Kian sat alone in his private study, tie long gone, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. A glass of Oban untouched in his hand. He’d barely moved since stepping out of the car after the press conference.

The city skyline glared back at him through the floor-to-ceiling windows—silent, pulsing, judgmental.

He had stood in front of power brokers and corporate titans and peeled his armor off. Piece by piece. Truth by aching truth.

But it wasn’t them he’d bled for.

It was her.

Ava.

She hadn’t clapped.

Hadn’t smiled.

She’d looked at him like a queen on the verge of exiling a king who’d broken her favorite sword.

And Kian?

He deserved it.

He’d spent so long mastering the language of control—managing narratives, whispering boardroom sins into obedience—that now, stripped bare of excuses, he wasn’t sure who the hell he was without his lies.

But Ava had given him a chance.

Not forgiveness. Not love.

A test.

And he’d felt it in her voice that night—in the backseat of the car, wrapped in heat and challenge.

"Don’t make me choose between loving you and respecting myself again."

Fuck.

He slammed back the scotch, the burn sharp and welcome.

He wanted her.

But he didn’t just want her body.

He wanted the version of himself she made possible.

The man who didn’t run.

The man who built, instead of buried.

He stood, restless now. Pacing. Thinking of the way her mouth tightened when she held back tears. The way her voice never rose, even when she could destroy him with one word.

She had all the weapons.

But hadn’t drawn a single blade.

And that restraint?

It was maddening.

It was power.

It was foreplay.

He found her in the walk-in dressing lounge of the penthouse suite.

She stood in front of the backlit mirror in a long silk slip, brushing her hair out with unhurried movements. The kind that said, I know you’re watching. But I’m not performing. I never have to.

Kian stepped in, barefoot. Quiet.

But Ava didn’t turn.

“Did you want applause?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said. “I wanted… clarity.”

“You think standing on a stage makes you clean?”

“No,” he murmured, stepping behind her. “But it makes me accountable.”

Her eyes met his in the mirror—icy, assessing.

He reached out, brushing her hair over one shoulder, fingertips grazing her collarbone. Her skin was warm. Unforgiving.

“I don’t want to be the man who hid behind you anymore,” he said.

She studied his reflection, then closed her eyes for a beat.

“You always knew I’d outshine you eventually,” she said.

“I was counting on it.”

That made her smile.

A small one. Dangerous. Addictive.

“I’m not here for your comfort, Kian.”

“I know.”

“Then what do you want?”

His hands moved lower—palms resting on her hips through the silk.

“I want you to interrogate me.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Interrogate?”

“Not with questions,” he said. “With your body. With your silence. With the way you haven’t touched me since you found out.”

Ava turned slowly in his arms. Looked up at him, eyes unreadable.

“You want punishment.”

He shook his head.

“I want proof that I’m still worthy of your desire.”

Her hand slid up his chest, fingers trailing over the faint scar near his sternum.

“I haven’t decided if you are.”

“Then decide with your hands,” he said. “Use me. Strip me of the man I was.”

A long, slow breath left her lips.

And then—like a courtroom gavel striking satin—she walked him backward.

Wordless.

Unforgiving.

She pushed him into the velvet chaise by the window, straddling his lap without haste. Her slip bunched up around her thighs, warm and soft against his bare skin.

Her fingers moved to the buttons of his shirt—slow, deliberate, surgical.

“Do not speak,” she whispered.

He nodded.

She undid his shirt one button at a time, but didn’t remove it. Just left it hanging open, exposing his chest, his tension, his vulnerability.

Then she kissed his neck—not to soothe.

To mark.

To inspect the fault lines she’d found in his empire.

Her tongue traced the hollow of his throat. Her nails raked down his chest, just hard enough to make him suck in a breath.

But he didn’t move.

Didn’t touch her.

This wasn’t s*x.

It was penance.

She bit his shoulder lightly.

“Still want to be interrogated?” she asked, voice like honey cut with knives.

He nodded once.

She shifted on his lap, grinding once—cruelly slow—over the bulge in his slacks.

Kian sucked in a breath through his teeth, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment.

But she didn’t kiss him. Didn’t move again.

She just sat there.

Perfect. Still. Weaponized.

The silk of her slip rode high on her thighs, cool against the heat between them. Kian could feel her—bare, wet, devastatingly close—but Ava made no move to close the gap. She leaned forward, breath whispering over his lips, and said nothing.

That was worse than anything she could’ve screamed.

Because her silence spoke in a thousand languages.

You’re mine.

You’re broken.

You don’t get to come just because you’re sorry.

His hips twitched up, seeking friction, but her hand pressed hard to his chest, keeping him down.

“Easy,” she whispered, her voice low and molten. “You’ll take what I give you. And nothing more.”

She shifted again—this time just enough to let him feel her heat drag along the ridge of his c**k. Still clothed. Still denied.

Kian groaned, the sound caught between arousal and agony.

Ava smiled like a woman watching a god beg.

“Still proud?” she asked, grinding again, slower this time.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t.

The tension between them stretched like piano wire.

Then her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his pants—not to touch him directly, but to trace around the line of his hip, just inside the danger zone.

“I could take you,” she murmured, voice like silk strangling him. “Right here. Ride you until you beg, until you cry, until you don’t know where your guilt ends and your need begins.”

He whimpered—an actual, raw sound from a man who’d once ruled boardrooms with just his breath.

She leaned in, lips grazing his cheek, not quite kissing.

“But I won’t.”

He clenched his jaw.

“Why?” he rasped.

“Because you don’t deserve to come tonight, Kian.”

Then she licked a slow stripe just under his jaw.

“But I want you to feel what you lost. I want you to ache with it.”

She reached down and, through his pants, palmed him hard.

Kian bucked, groaning like he’d been hit.

“I want your c**k to remember what it’s like to be denied by the only woman who knows how to make it mean something.”

Then—she pulled her hand away.

Stood.

Straightened her slip slowly, fixing the fabric like a queen adjusting her crown.

Kian watched, ruined, hard as hell, every nerve raw.

Ava stepped toward the doorway.

And then she turned, tilting her head just enough to cut his soul in half.

“Oh—and if you touch yourself tonight…”

Her gaze dropped to the obvious bulge in his pants, then met his eyes again.

“…I’ll know.”

And then she walked out.

Leaving the door open.

Leaving him gasping.

Leaving his body high on punishment and his soul drunk on her power.